


The Upside Down Circus

by kittenCorrosion



Series: Mileven Week  2016 [5]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: AU, F/M, I'm Crazy, do not take this seriously, it's a circus au and it's basically the first episode of the show but without the adults or teens, it's crazy, there's not really a lot of mileven in it sorry, this is the most fuckin' ridiculous thing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-29
Updated: 2016-11-29
Packaged: 2018-09-03 03:25:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,931
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8694502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kittenCorrosion/pseuds/kittenCorrosion
Summary: The Upside Down Circus is mysterious, but the kids who live in it are just excited to cheer on their friend as he performs his act solo for the first time. But when something goes wrong in the tent next door, they end up losing a friend but finding another. Mileven Week Day 6 (Dec 3rd)"Upside Down" aka "Pick an AU"





	

**Author's Note:**

> i don't take this that seriously, so you don't need to feel the need to take it seriously either.
> 
> the prompt was to pick an AU so i literally went and found a list and picked circus and this is what happened, so i'm sorry, don't feel the need to read it if you want.
> 
> heAVILY inspired by erin morgenstern's "the night circus", which is a fantastic book that i highly recommend.

It was the kind of circus that appeared overnight. One day there was nothing but a barren stretch of field, the next it would be filled to the brim with technicolor tents, vivid stripes of color as far as the eye could see, mechanical whirligigs and rides lit up with neon lights and the heavy scent of sugared funnel cakes and caramel popcorn filling the air. 

Children and adults alike would stare as they passed, curiosity piqued, imagination captured by what wonders could be inside. The sign over the gate read “The Upside Down Circus: Open at Dusk”, so the gathering crowds waited, patient, for the sun to drop beneath the horizon

&&

Mike darted from tent to tent, trying to go unnoticed by blending in with the bustling crowds. He sighed in relief as managed not to get caught and then slid into the back of a magenta and orange striped tent, pushing the flap aside to reveal three other boys his age sitting around on empty crates. 

“It’s about time, Mike. What took you so long?” Lucas complained. He was still clad in his embarrassingly flamboyant unitard, the shiny blue fabric great for the aerodynamics required for his trapeze performance. Not so great for casual-wear. He tugged at it self-consciously. “I didn’t even bother changing, so you have no excuse for being late.”

Mike shrugged apologetically, giving the only reason he had as an explanation.

“Nancy said I had to feed the leopards before I left or she’d tell my mom I was sneaking out early.” He shuddered, and his friends sighed, knowing he had good reason to be more afraid of his whip-wielding mother than the giant cats she tamed. 

Dustin was wiping the last bits of white paint off of his face, tucking his red clown nose into the pocket of his jeans, trying to return to his less ridiculous state. They all glanced at Will, dressed in a black tuxedo, who was nervously adjusting his white gloves and top hat for the umpteenth time.

“You’re gonna do fine, Will.” Mike told him, trying to reassure his friend. Will sighed, nervous.

“I-I know. It’s just my first time doing the show alone and I don’t want to get it wrong,” he tugged his glove again, fidgety, “and there’s just so much I could mess up.”

Lucas snorted.

“Dude, you’ve been doing magic since you were like two. Remember when you made Mike’s pacifier disappear and he cried for a week?” 

“Hey! I did not!”

The tension in the room released as they all broke out laughing. Will visibly relaxed, looking at his friends gratefully. “I’m glad you guys are here to watch.”

“Well it sure beats being on clown duty,” Dustin lisped, referring to being one of the random clowns who had to roam the grounds alone, “in the last town I almost got punched. If I’d known the guy had coulrophobia, I obviously wouldn’t have honked at him.” He grumbled the last bit, still salty.

Mike rolled his eyes, but gave Will another reassuring look. “If you freak out or something just give us the signal and we’ll create a distraction in the audience, okay?”

Will smiled at his three friends.

“You guys are the best.”

&&

Right next door, in a dark grey tent with garish blood red stripes, another show was about to begin. 

A sign hanging across the entrance read, “Dare to step in and see the freak of nature!” in messy black paint, with a smaller sign beneath that said, “16+ only”. A faded banner showed the image of a cage, the corner hidden in the darkness, two glowing, red eyes peering out from the shadows. 

“Hold still, Eleven.” The tall white-haired man snarled as he dragged the black kohl around the small girl’s eyes. Her hair was buzzed short, the kohl used in an attempt to make her large eyes more apparent and freakish. The irises were an otherworldly shade of red, one of the reasons she had been placed in the freakshow. 

She stopped struggling, submitting with a whimper as he smudged the black stuff out around her eyes, leaving fingerprints and hidden bruises.

“Sorry, Papa.” She murmured. Normally she complied without complaint, but today she was restless. The trick they were attempting today was something beyond what she ever believed she could do. She fidgeted with the edge of the ragged gown she wore, rubbing her fingers on a threadbare patch along the bottom, nervous.

“Now, Eleven,” Papa started, giving her face a few more deliberate swipes with his fingers, “today is a big day. I want you to do just as we practiced, all right?”

“Yes, Papa,” she said obediently, looking up at him, eyes wide and unsure. 

&&

“Behold!”

The words echoed through the tent and the audience quieted their whispers. The tall, blondish teenager on stage waved his hands in the air, his movements mesmerizing. With a snap of his fingers the air fizzled and sparked, a thick white smoke obscuring him for a brief second. It dissipated and there stood a small boy instead, decked out in a classic black tuxedo, top hat perched on his head.

“Will the Wise!”

The audience cheered, Dustin letting out a high-pitched whistle from where he sat between Lucas and Mike. Will bowed on stage, lifting his top hat jauntily off his head and reaching in, looking thoughtful. Gasping dramatically, he pulled his hand out, revealing a white rabbit. He looked at it puzzled, then reached into the hat and rummaged around again, this time pulling out a white dove. He looked even more puzzled and the audience chuckled at his apparent confusion. Reaching in one more time he revealed a tiny white kitten which mewed as he looked down at it, his face horrified and the audience roared with laughter. The three animals scampered offstage to hands unseen behind the red curtain. Will bowed again, modestly and began his next trick.

&&

Eleven glared out at the audience from inside of the steel cage as they gasped and murmured in horror and disbelief. Her eyes flitted from person to person, watching as their faces shifted from curious to disgust. She was glad she was inside of the cage, where they couldn’t reach, and just hoped that this time they wouldn’t throw hard things at her.

_ Plop. _

A half-filled bag of caramel popcorn sailed between the bars instead, landing at her feet. With a desperate whine she reached down and snatched it up hungrily, shoving as much as he could into her mouth. The crowd roared in disgust and she jumped in fear as the familiar sound of whip cracking against the bars filled the tent. Papa looked at her, disappointed and held his hand out. She shrank, mouth still full of popcorn and she reached out, handing him the bag with small sigh. He took it and threw it out of sight, turning to face the audience.

“Ladies and gentleman, are you ready to see a sight unlike anything you’ve ever witnessed?”

The audience cheered halfheartedly, unsure what could be exciting about this small girl in a cage. With small smile he walked towards them, selecting a man sitting in the front.

“Sir, may I borrow your watch?”

The man looked uncertain, but his wife prodded him excitedly and he took it off and handed it over. Papa turned back to the cage and unceremoniously dropped it on the ground, just out of reach.

“Eleven,” he said, his voice silky smooth as he pointed at the watch. “Fetch.”

She nodded and turned her gaze onto the small object, eyes focusing in and reached a hand out towards it, concentrating. The ground around it grew dark and filmy, and the audience gasped as it slid out of sight. With a dull /thud/ it appeared out of thin air and hit the ground in front of Eleven. She relaxed, having completed her task, not noticing the thin drip of blood oozing out of her nose.

The audience erupted, part screams of fear, part applause. One woman swooned, another got up and bolted from the tent. The man who owned the watch looked horrified and reached out.

“My watch!” He said, sounding desperate. Papa looked at her and nodded slightly.

“Give it back, Eleven.”

She concentrated again and the watch disappeared back into the nothingness, reappearing and dropping into the man’s lap. He jumped, startled, then grabbed both the watch and his wife and bustled out of the tent.

Eleven frowned. She never understood why people were so terrified. Was what she did so different that it made her a freak? With a sigh she stepped back away from the bars, waiting for the crowd to settle. Those who stayed were intrigued by this display, knowing it wasn’t just a common, entertaining magic trick, but something more… dark. Papa reached behind a table hidden in the corner and revealed a small cage, roughly pulling the frightened tabby inside of it out, displaying it for all to see. The cat hissed in fear.

“And now, good people, watch, as the freak uses her mind powers to make this cat fly through the air!”

He unceremoniously threw it high into the air and it flailed, falling towards the ground with an angry screech. Stopping in mid-air, eyes wide, it began to zoom around the inside of the tent, over the heads of the audience who looked up, watching, mouths open in shock. It stopped, floating ten feet off the ground directly in front of the cage. Papa reached up and she let it drop into his waiting hands, stuffing it back into it’s cage and setting it aside. 

Turning back to the audience he smiled a cold smile and gestured widely, eyes glinting. 

“And now watch! As the freak makes herself disappear!”

&&

“And for my final trick,” Will’s small voice rang through the air, “I will make myself disappear!”

The audience cheered and the small boy onstage smiled. Dustin nudged Lucas. 

“He hasn't screwed anything up,” Dustin said, “.....yet.”

Lucas elbowed him in the ribs and Dustin shoved him back, starting a mini jabbing war. Mike reached over and pushed them both, frowning, and gestured towards the stage.

“Would you two quit it?” He said with glare. Dustin shrugged innocently and Lucas muttered something incoherent under his breath, but they both stopped, turning their gazes back onto Will.

Will’s brother, Jonathan, the teenager who had started the show, was helping to wheel a large black box to center stage. Across the front in neon red lights it read “WATCH WHAT STRANGE THINGS APPEAR”. Jonathan opened the front, revealing the box to be empty, the inside filled with nothing but inky darkness. Taking a deep breath, Will stepped into the box.

&&

Concentrating with all her mind, Eleven focused on the ground beneath her, her temples throbbing, heart racing. 

This was the one, the ability they’d been practicing. So far she’d only been able to do it once, and it wasn’t an experience she was excited to do again. She shivered, remembering the world she’d transported herself to. It had been dark and cold, a reflection of the Circus but creepy, covered in strange strings of slime, the atmosphere muffled and full of floating particles. But Papa asked her to do it and if she managed to do it like last time he might pick her up again and carry her back to his trailer and let her sleep on his bed like last time. Maybe… maybe he’d even let her have a new dress.

The ground suddenly softened, the packed dirt beneath her feet turning into a fleshlike substance that began to suck her in. She shuddered at the feeling but let it take her, dissolving down and through the ground. 

Then she felt something grab her leg and she screamed, the sound reverberating throughout the Circus.

&&

Just as the door was shut on Will’s smiling face, there was night-pitched scream nearby and the lights in the tent, and the through the entire grounds, flickered. Mike looked up, curious and leaned towards Dustin. “Did you see that?”

“See what?”

“The lights just like, flickered or something.”

“It’s probably just one of the generators frying again.”

Mike nodded, the explanation making perfect sense, but he couldn’t shake the feeling that something was not right.

&&

“Papa!” Eleven shrieked, screaming and trying to claw her way back out of the portal she’d opened, kicking her legs frantically. There was steady stream of blood pouring from her nose now, she could taste the metallic tang as she thrashed. The lights in the tent were flickering madly, and the audience had started panicking the second she first screamed, some bolting from the tent, others frozen in place, not believing what was happening. 

With a painful screech, she freed herself, pulling herself out of the portal and crawling as far away from it as possible, huddling against the bars of cage, eyes large and frightened. She turned to her captor, her face desperate.

“Papa! Papa, please!” Reaching with her arms she cried out for him. His face remained passive, eyes looking past her and fixating on the hole in ground that was now emanating a sickly, green glow. Turning and following his gaze, Eleven watched in horror as a long, thin, pale arm stretched out of the portal, an otherworldly screech echoing through the tent. 

It wasn’t human.

She was now throwing herself against the bars of the cage, bruising herself against the unforgiving metal, but too afraid of being trapped in with whatever was trying to pull itself into their world to care. The thing screeched, another pale arm pushing through the portal, and she panicked. Though already exhausted, she faced the bars and screamed, high-pitched and wavering, eyes watering. With a groan they bent, the whole cage shifting, and she shoved herself out of the gap she created just as every single light on the Circus grounds flickered out.

&&

Jonathan, still posing as the assistant, tapped the box twice, then spun it, so the audience could see that there were no secret back doors to escape from. With dramatic gesture he opened the box, revealing it to be empty. The crowd “oohed” and he shut the door again, repeating his actions, spinning the box. When he opened it again it was still empty. A confused murmur arose and the three boys looked at each other.

“Wasn’t he supposed to reappear?” Lucas asked.

Mike nodded and opened his mouth to say something, but before he could the sounds of screams and panic erupted from somewhere right beside their tent.

Then the lights went out and all hell broke lose.

Grabbing his friends, Mike darted from the tent, looking around and trying to figure out what was happening. 

“Head for my mom’s tent! It’s closest!” He told them.

Dustin and Lucas were close on his heels, panting as they swerved through stampedes of terrified guests trying to make it to the gold and black Lion tent. Somewhere behind them they heard a high-pitched screaming, the sound so high it made them clap their hands over their ears and wince. A low, guttural growling followed the scream and then there was the sound of wrenching metal. Pausing, Dustin turned to look back from the way they came, spotting the grey and red tent, a sickly green glow emanating from beneath the fabric. 

“What the hell is that?!” 

Mike and Lucas paused and turned back to look. Lucas’s eyes widened at the sight and he pushed them all forward, spotting the Lion tent in the distance.

“Who cares, we need to get out of here!” 

Mike was still frozen in place, fixated on the strange light and the tent they’d never been allowed inside of. Something was definitely not right, and he smacked Lucas’s pushing hands away, heart sinking as new thought hit him like a train.

“You guys, what about Will?”

“He has Jonathan, we didn’t leave him alone. He’s probably safer hiding inside of his box.” Lucas said, but he seemed a bit unsure and stopped shoving. Dustin pushed them both out of the way, suddenly bold despite the darkness.

“We gotta go check on him.” He said, and with a reluctant nod Lucas agreed. The three boys sprinted back the way they had come, the dwindling panicked crowds making it easier to reach the tent. They skirted around the edge of the grey and black one, noticing that the glow had faded but not wanting to get too close anyways. Ducking back into the magenta and orange structure, which was now empty and pitch-black, they quickly ran up onto the stage, finding the strange box on it’s side, door slightly ajar. 

They looked at each other, suddenly uncertain, not hearing any noises but their own frightened breathing. Then a quiet sniffle came from the box and they gasped in relief.

“Will! Sorry, we didn’t mean to leave you….” Mike dropped to his knees and pushed the door open further as Dustin pulled out his pocket flashlight. Shining it into the box, they froze, startled.

It was definitely not Will. 

A small, frightened girl looked up at them from where she was curled in the corner. Her head was buzzed, her ivory dress threadbare and dirty, and her face was covered in both dried and fresh blood. Most shocking, though, were her blood-red eyes, made bigger by the smudges of black that surrounded them. They couldn’t do anything but stare, and she stared back, blinking in the light, face unsure.

“Well, shit.” Dustin said.

**Author's Note:**

> there it is.
> 
> *hides under a blanket*


End file.
